To take-the -plunge or not-take-the-plunge, that's the bloggin' question

So, I spent 6 weeks scouring the Internet and reading all the information I could find about migrating from Blogger to Wordpress.org (not Wordpress.com). I contacted some people who’d done it before, but their answers lacked the details I was looking for. I also wanted the best website host for the best price. I didn’t know if this combination was possible, but I was going to find out.

October 4, 2011. I found a place online I’d never heard of, where people advertise various services for $5.00 (or in the UK - £5.00). I contacted one of the sellers - J - there and he agreed to do the migration process (you didn’t think I was doing it myself, did you? That would be mental! I give writing tips, not coding tips) But first I had to choose a domain name and purchase it.

Choosing a web hosting service

By all accounts, Hostgator was recommended as the best web-hosting site for a newbie, tech idiot like moi. J happened to be an affiliate of said site and he said if I would purchase the domain through his link, I’d get a discount. He’d then install Wordpress on my self-hosted website, install the best plugins, make a custom header, then do the migration. However, I already had plans to buy the website for a 25% discount from another affiliate (M) I trusted - whose Word Press articles and tutorials I’d been devouring for a while. Now, at least I had some concrete information about the actual blog migration!

But I still had questions about hostgator, about their policies and practises. I also wanted to know if they would migrate a blogger blog for free (I'd noticed some stuff on their website to this effect). I still had the option of using J for just $5.00, but I wanted to make the best use of my time and money. I had a free, 20 minutes’ live chat with one of hostgator's support staff. He was very helpful and gave me all the information I required. They didn't do Blogger migration for free, but this made it easier for me to move on with my plans.

Purchasing the domain

My visit to hostgator on purchase day left me slightly confused. There were so many options, but from what I could see, prices started from 3.99 a month for the lowest option available. This was a bit too high for me, even with the discount. I was torn, but knew M was a successful online business woman with high-profile Internet relationships. What tipped the scales for me was when I found out her 25% discount included the Word press upload and some other sweet stuff like; a sitemap, private policy page, comment luv, all in one SEO pack and more, I thought this was the best I could hope for. Many of these things were stuff I’d never heard of, and naturally if I hadn’t heard of them, how was I going to be able to upload them myself?

Bartering

My mind was made up, geared with all the information I’d now gleaned from several sources.

Now I virtually had my website (when I bought it) customized for free and some plugins installed. It was time to head back to J. I still needed him to migrate all my stuff from Blogger to the self-hosted Word press site, but he had less work to do now that I was getting some plugins installed for free. I managed to get him to agree to do some extra things to make up for that. Although, I've now remembered he never did a header! (The cheek!). The ball was starting to roll.

After a few hair-raising, 'What have I done!' moments, frantic back and forth emails to M and a stressful 2 days and nights thinking I hadn't got the domain name I wanted, I was able to breathe more easily. Things were starting to happen once the purchase was made, but the migrated stuff didn't keep their original format, and many of the pictures managed to blend together! I only found this out at the very end. What would I do about that? Stay tuned for a third instalment of by hair-raising Blogger to Wordpress migration experience. I think I can show you this migrated website now. It's DIY projects!

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Anne's a published author, freelance writer and experienced editor. She's just signed her second publishing contract this year with 2 separate publishing houses. You can hire her or see her available books in the side panel on the right.

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